{"id":186050,"date":"2020-11-28T08:48:31","date_gmt":"2020-11-28T07:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=186050"},"modified":"2020-11-28T08:48:31","modified_gmt":"2020-11-28T07:48:31","slug":"aek-big-man-yanick-moreira-named-basketball-champions-league-november-mvp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/aek-big-man-yanick-moreira-named-basketball-champions-league-november-mvp\/","title":{"rendered":"AEK big man Yanick Moreira named Basketball Champions League November MVP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.championsleague.basketball\/20-21\/player\/Yanick-Moreira\">Yanick Moreira<\/a><\/strong> of AEK has been named MVP of the Month for November in recognition of his important contribution to his team&#8217;s perfect start to the 2020-21 Basketball Champions League season.<\/p>\n<p>The 29-year-old Angolan international averaged 17.7 points and 6.3 rebounds per game through November,\u00a0 on an almost flawless 72.4 percent shooting from the floor and an average efficiency rating of 21.<\/p>\n<p>AEK are off to a 3-0 start to the BCL season for the first time in their five-year history in the competition.<\/p>\n<p>Moreira, who had never earned MVP honors in his previous two campaigns in the BCL, was delighted upon hearing the news of the accolade.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"type_1\"><p>I know that our fans have high expectations, but right now we want them to stay patient and take it one game at a time &#8211; Yanick Moreira<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m very happy to be hearing about this, I&#8217;d never thought about it, especially this early in the season,&#8221; Moreira told championsleague.basketball<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[My performances with AEK this month] really have to do with my teammates, they are doing an exceptional job to put me in great situations and I\u2019m playing with a lot of great players.<\/p>\n<div class=\"youtubeWrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"widget2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/n_zkbYI3DaM?enablejsapi=1\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;I was on these three different teams and when I was at PAOK with coach Ilias [Papatheodorou] we had almost the same style of play as here at AEK.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I\u2019m just happy to be in this position and really just want to keep helping the team win games.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>AEK have done nothing else but winning games since the start of the season, as they are undefeated not only in the BCL but also in the Greek Basket League.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"type_1\"><p>[My advice to big men is] to know your role and be good in your role, and everything else will come to you &#8211; Yanick Moreira<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In fact, they have only suffered one single defeat since last winter, at the hands of Hereda San Pablo Burgos in the 2020 BCL Final, on October 4th.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Nobody thought that we would start the season like this, but we are working every day and the coaching staff does a great job of getting us ready for every game,&#8221; Moreira said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That\u2019s why we are in this position right now, and we going to keep working and getting better.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I know that our fans have high expectations, but right now we want them to stay patient and take it one game at a time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That\u2019s all we can do, play one game at a time and we will see what this start of the season will lead us to.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Moreira knows a thing or two about a BCL season leading to great things as he has a gold medal in his trophy case, the 2018-19 title with Segafredo Virtus Bologna.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"type_1\"><p>I would love to have our fans back in the gym as soon as possible so we can have again in our game that energy that we miss so badly &#8211; Yanick Moreira<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The Angolan big man joined the Italian powerhouse midway through that season, from PAOK. The Thessaloniki club was his first in Greece and then in 2019-20 he played for Peristeri before signing with AEK this offseason.<\/p>\n<p>He modestly credits the level of competition in the BCL and the teammates he played with on those teams for his development as a player.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My teammates and the coaching stuff are doing a great job of creating opportunities for me,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And this league is really helping me to get better, it gives me the opportunity to go up against a lot of great big men.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Moreira has some words of advice for fellow big men who find themselves playing on a team full of star guards, such as AEK.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[My advice to big men is] to know your role and be good in your role, and everything else will come to you.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don\u2019t have to do a lot because the guards I have in my team kind of know how I play, since we had played against each other for a while here in the Greek league, so I think that\u2019s the key.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But I also have to give credit to coach Ilias for getting me to play for him again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>There is one milestone around the corner for AEK that doesn&#8217;t depend on Moreira&#8217;s and the rest of the team&#8217;s performances on the court, but it will be a huge moment for them and everybody at the club.<\/p>\n<p>The Athens &#8216;Queen&#8217; is poised to leave the OAKA Nikos Galis Hall in 2021 and move to their own arena, in a western suburb of Athens.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have already been to visit the new arena, shortly after I signed with AEK,&#8221; Moreira said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I would love to have our fans back in the gym as soon as possible so we can have again in our game that energy that we miss so badly,&#8221; the Angolan big man concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 29-year-old Angolan international averaged 17.7 points and 6.3 rebounds per game through November<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":158,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[83],"tags":[2036,1691,5415],"rumors":[],"typology":[19],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-186050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-basketball-champions-league","tag-aek-athens","tag-basketball-champions-league-it","tag-yanick-moreira","typology-video"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/158"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186050\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186050"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=186050"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=186050"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=186050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}